Page:Mexico of the Mexicans.djvu/188



question of the origin of the natives of Mexico is one which has vexed the minds of antiquaries for generations; but it is now generally conceded that, in dim and distant prehistoric times, the native American races must have entered the continent they now inhabit from Asia. But this statement must not be taken as meaning that they drew their culture in any degree from the East. Entering America as barbarous and, perhaps, speechless savages, they had perforce to evolve a civilisation of their own; and the best proof that that civilisation is not in any way Asiatic is the absence of Old World animals, food-stuffs, and plants on the American continent. A study, too, of the American native languages completes the evidence that these must have evolved under entirely American conditions.

As has already been hinted, it seems likely that the Nahua peoples of Mexico originated and gained their racial characteristics in the neighbourhood of British Columbia, the present-day races of which resemble them in physique, artistic effort, and religious conceptions. Several legends exist which tell of the coming of the Nahua from the North: one of which states that they made the journey by canoe, whilst another would seem to infer that they migrated south-wards by way of the Rocky Mountains. The language still spoken by these people of Nahua stock is of the type known as "incorporative," that is, several words or ideas are fused into one. Of this grammatical custom, a cumbrous and rather barbarous tongue is the result; and Mexican names especially, which are usually compounded of several words, are often grievously difficult to pronounce and even to read. A word may be said here as to the pronunciation of the Rh